[email protected]:
hey guys ......... i am not a engineering student.....i am 13 years old now .....i started getting into the world of engineering from when i was 10 years old....i started getting into analog circuits and then microcontrollers.... etc now i can possibly program microcontrollers for I/O ...... now i just had a plan to make a quad copter so did a long research n found out that i need to learn whats a PID controlleri learnt whats PID n now trying to implement it on a line follower ........ n then i would probably start working on d quad copter.......now as u can see internet was my teacher..... so i dont know advanced maths(as i am not a engineering student) ....... but pathfinding algorithms seem to have advance maths....... so can you guys tell me a list of maths topics that i have to learn......i dont need to implement it on any robot..... but just wanna learn ....if u point out what topics would i have to learn i would slowly start learning........

thnxx in advance

jwatte:
First make sure you're really good with multiplication and division *in your head*. It helps a lot when doing steps of the next parts.Factoring numbers *in your head* is an example of something very helpful.Then make sure you understand algebra. Parentheses, simplification, extraction of terms.Move on to algebraic equations -- solve for one variable in linear and quadratic equations. Solve for two variables in a two-equation system.Then do trigonometry -- sine, cosine, tangent, and the inverse of those functions. Understanding trig is super important, but once you're into linear algebra and do 3D math, it's actually not *used* much, just a good grounding to understand.A traditional curriculum would then lead you through limits, derivatives, and integrals -- classical calculus of one variable. On the one hand, that's useful for later areas. On the other hand, it's not useful for much *real*.I'd rather just do linear algebra at that point. Vectors, matrices, quaternions as they pertain to 3D geometry.Another useful set of math is the intersection with computer science you get in computational geometry. Anything from graph theory, set geometry, to spatial indexing. This requires the linear algebra to become efficient.If you have calculus you can move on to differential equations, and multi-variable calculus. Diffs are useful for motion systems and other continuously evolving systems -- analog electric circuits, mechanical motion, etc.Finally, the red-headed step children of applied mathematics: numerical methods, and statistics. Both are actually important, and neither gets much love from the mainstream.After that, you're approximately OK for a BS in math. From there, you can go into applications (which typically intersect with computer science, and/or perhaps EE or Mech) or specialize into theoretical math.

Good sites:http://mathworld.wolfram.com/http://www.khanacademy.org/

[email protected]:
thnxxx for your reply,in pathfinding algorithms .... say wavefront how does the robot plan its path???for example, if it wants to navigate from my room to kitchen and there is a obstacle in between..... how does it plan it's path to go around the obstacle???

newInRobotics:

--- Quote from: [email protected] on February 20, 2013, 05:45:22 AM ---thnxxx for your reply,in pathfinding algorithms .... say wavefront how does the robot plan its path???for example, if it wants to navigate from my room to kitchen and there is a obstacle in between..... how does it plan it's path to go around the obstacle???

--- End quote ---You can use A* algorithm. Look it up :)

[email protected]:
hmmmm is A* easier than wavefront??and how does a robot plan it's path in any of the pathfinding algorithms????